


Cycle

by Sjukdom



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sjukdom/pseuds/Sjukdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small scene, where Oswald agrees to confess to Galavan's murder to save Jim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> The story was inspired by the lines of a Gottfried Benn's poem "Kreislauf" ("Cycle"). I used them as the epigraph. English translation by Supervert.

_“Denn, sagte er,  
nur Erde solle zur Erde werden.”_

_“For, he said,  
only earth should return to earth.”_

It was happening once again.

Two men. The dirty river. The dock. The wind, echoing other people's talk and humming of cars, like a playful ghost. The cold. The breath, white and thick like cigarette smoke in the frosty air. Everything seemed the same.

Except not entirely.

“Please”, said Jim and Oswald was alarmed with his pleading tone. “I'll do everything, I'll be your slave for life...”

Obviously, he used these particular words unwittingly. It was just the place and the situation, provoking memories and reconstructing speeches that took place long ago. But hearing his own words, formed by Jim's mouth, anyway made Oswald uncomfortable. He felt deeply ashamed, but of the other man, a weird, unnatural kind of feeling. He was grateful for the twilight that dwelt over the dock. The less Oswald perceived from Jim's desperate face expression the better.

Did he looked that miserable himself, when he begged Jim for his life, using the same short, degrading sentences? Perhaps. But he was Oswald and Oswald was used to beg and lower himself if that was profitable in any way. And Jim was Jim. When he begged, there was something terrible behind it, the whole world crushing down, Orpheus descending. It meant that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

That he was so helpless he had to contact Oswald, whom he preferred to avoid if it was at all possible, as if his vice and his darkness could be inhaled by Jim accidentally and start to corrupt him cell by cell. And Jim couldn't forgive Oswald being his biggest mistake. Jim spared him not to see him in Gotham again. By the way, what had he thought Oswald would do after this charitable act, become a gardener? How very naïve. Instead of it, Oswald disobeyed and came back, bringing with him more violence, more deaths, more chaos. 

Oswald suspected that every time Jim was looking at him he couldn't help feeling guilty for his attempt to save a life that completely failed. He saved Oswald, but sentenced so many others. Jim did bad things, but only if the result expected was good. Then he'd done a good thing and its consequences were dreadful. Sometimes Oswald felt his anger physically, so hot it was as it was radiating from him. Jim was angry with himself, for he was too trustful to believe Oswald, too weak and pitiful. And he was angry with Oswald, because he appeared to be so ungrateful and treacherous and broke a promise, however untold it was. In other words, he refused to play by Jim's rules, to do as he was told.

And now Jim turned into the man, who begged and pleaded. His previous behavior made him look only more pathetic now. Sometimes in the past Oswald actually dreamed of Jim imploring him for something, kneeling at Oswald's feet and pleading in a small voice, embarrassed and afraid. He had nowhere to go and nobody to trust except Oswald. Oswald was the one Jim could rely on, the one he depended on. In his dreams the scene looked exciting. Jim was so sweetly helpless and confused, vulnerable, stripped of his ridiculous masculinity and righteousness, so perceptive and attentive. And Oswald wasn't a failure or a dirty secret that had to be hidden from the world anymore. He was important, good. He was a blessing, the only hope. He was as close to being called a friend as he had ever managed to.

But here and now there was nothing exciting about it. It was too embarrassing to see his innocent dream coming true, only as true as a reflection in a false mirror. There was nothing sweet about Jim being helpless and desperate. He looked like a man who had been lying to himself for too long, who was lost in his illusions, but stubbornly refused to leave them. Like a mad homeless man, fussing over his humble possessions: an empty bottle of a cheap drink, a page from a boring magazine, a badge, advertising a long-forgotten politician's campaign...

And Oswald didn't feel himself a blessing. He felt only loathing and disgust. He wasn't willing to help Jim, only give him coup de grace to end his current misery. But it would be too short-sighted.

And Jim was a friend, after all.

“You will owe me. How much? Depends on what they will do to me”, told him Oswald, trying to sound respectful. “And you don't even know exactly what they are up to. Are you sure?”

Jim nodded without a word. He didn't even look him in the eyes. Oswald doubted that he did it because he couldn't bear to see the eyes of the man that was going to sacrifice himself to save him. Most likely, Jim was already regretting that he had gone soft again and got in touch with him to ask for help. Oswald felt the urge to slap him. To grab him. To drag him to the river and hiss that he must never come back in Gotham before shoving him into the water.

The end.

Everything returned to the point where it started.

The beginning.


End file.
